I thought I’d post this latest work-in-progress to showcase how easy it is to do flesh tones these days using one of the readily available acrylic sets. There are several companies that make fleshtones sets that have all the tones you need in one kit. Vallejo, GarageKit US Colors and Andrea Miniatures all make these sets. My personal preference for fleshtones is the Andrea Colors set.

I prefer the Andrea Colors because the dry dead flat. To be fair I have not used the GarageKit US Color set and I plan to pick one up at this year’s Wonderfest.

What I chose to paint is a bust of Ms Marvel made by Bowen Designs.

This is the cover art pic.

The version I got for cheap off of eBay was not painted as well and the suit and gloves were a much lighter metallic blue

I stripped the model with Citristrip which works really nicely on resin models (just as long as you don’t let it soak overnight). Once that was cleaned and scrubbed with a toothbrush and Comet Cleaner since the pumice in Comet puts a great surface for primer.

I gave the model several light coats of Floquil White figure primer and noticed that there were quite a few pin holes in the hair. I fixed those by brushing in Microscale’s Micro Kristal Klear and letting it dry an hour or so. That was sealed with more primer.

This is the bust all cleaned up and ready to paint. Just as a side note, the arms were separate pieces, so I worked them loose after stripping and repined them so I could remove them for painting.

The first step to painting was to use Tamiya tape to mask off the lightning bolt on the front of her uniform. I want that to remain white so I can paint the yellow on the bolt once the airbrushing is done. Yellows and Reds tend to be on the transparent side so having a base white will allow for a few coats of yellow and have it remain bright.

Since Ms. Marvel is typically depicted as being fair skinned. I am only using 5 of the six graduated colors. The darkest color is just too dark for this paint job. The paint was thinned to airbrush consistency by adding a mix of 1/3 water, 1/3 alcohol and 1/3 Windsor and Newton Blending medium (a retardant).

I applied a nice even (and very thin) base of the mid tone color. Note that if you use this set the numbering is weird, because Andrea has a system for painting that is a bit odd. So when I say the mid tone it is actually the bottle labeled #1.

I let this dry about 20 minutes and then applied another even coat so that I had a good solid base. I also took the next darkest color (#5) and started to outline the sash and to delineate some of the curves on her backside and thighs.

Like I said I wouldn't leave it on overnight. I typically leave it no more than 30 then scrub off what came loose. Some times it take three tries to get the pain completely removed. They also sell it in a small jug so you can paint it on stubborn spots.

Hey folks! I’m back with a big (image heavy) update. So after doing some work on the area where the clothing or hair meets the skin tone, I got into more serious shading and highlighting. 90% of this was done with the airbrush, the rest was some light brush work here and there.

I did a little brush work to the face prior to adding airbrushed colors. Most of this consisted of painting in the eyes and then running a thin, narrow wash around the mask and to edge the face where the hair meets.

Then I started to add tone and definition to the skin using #2.

I also took some of the lightest flesh tone and use that to paint the “whites” of her eyes.

Here’s a look at my work area while I was airbrushing. I mix the flesh colors in plastic condiment cups with lids. This allows me to work for a couple of days without having to mix paint each time.

Once the Shading was mostly blocked in, I started to add the highlights by hitting the higher areas with the second lightest color.

I tacked the arms in place to check the shading.

I added two coats of Future to give the eye decals a good surface later. You can see the highlights added to the nose and upper lips and the dark wash added as the base for the lips.

Here you can see all of the other highlighting and shading done.

I then took a break and blocked in the yellow bolt and did her lips. The lips were done by starting with a crimson base and adding a blood red then an orange for highlights all while the surface was relatively wet. Those acrylic colors were all from Games Workshop as was the base yellow.

I used Archer Eye decals to place the Iris and I also chose to block in all of the black. The black is Humbrol Night black.

For the eyes, I painted dark Blue (Andrea Colors) over the iris and then went back with two lighter shades.

The pupils were added as were two white reflection dot (one in each eye).

Once the face was mostly done, I used a yellow ochre color from Vallejo as the base for the blonde hair. I also took the same GW Blood Red and blocked in the sash.

Next up was a little trickery. I took the flesh tone shade #4 (second from the darkest) and made a very thin wash. I typically only use oil colors for washes except in instances like this where I want the wash to be more of a stain than a true was. I let that dry about 30 minutes then went back and dry brushed the base color back into the hair.

Finally for this installment I took the base color of the hair and added it 50/50 with white and dry brushed that over the hair.